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Newsletter
February 2015
TOP NEWS
PREMIERED NEW BEER
We premiered our brand new beer- the first under our new Charlie Wells branding
at the Craft Beer Rising Festival in London over the weekend. Charlie Wells Dry
Hopped Lager made its official debut and received an excellent reception from the
trade, beer writers and consumers alike. Our new crafty beer perfectly balances
our vision for the future with our proud heritage. It was inspired by Charles Wells’
roots travelling in the Merchant Navy and is brewed using several varieties of
hops from around the world to create the beer’s slight bitterness, hoppy aroma
and subtle maltiness with a deliciously smooth finish.
For the beer’s branding we’ve created a new character “Charlie” who is a modern day version of our
founder Charles Wells, look closely at his tattoos as they tell the story of his adventures which helped build
the brewery we have today.
OTHER GREAT NEWS
CHARLIE WELLS DRY HOPPED
LAGER (THE SCIENCE BIT..).
“Karl Ottomar, Head Brewer:
talks us through what gives
Charlie Wells Dry Hopped
Lager its distinctive taste:
“The beer is brewed in true
continental style;
we use 100% malt
in the mash and
add in Target hops
followed by a late
addition of Styrian
Goldings to add
that really noble
hop aroma. We
ferment the beer
cool with lager yeast
for seven days
and what makes
this beer really special is a two
week cold conditioning stage with
Australian Galaxy and Ella hops
which brings out all that depth of
flavour and dry hop
character”.
PEOPLE
New for 2015 is a modular based
development programme called
the Commercial Academy.
It encompasses a variety
of subjects from the sales
process, presentation skills,
finance, our brands, brewing
and time management
which are each covered in
separate one day training
sessions for commercial
team members. Nomination
forms have been sent to
line managers for people to
take part so if you’d like to
get involved in some or all of the
modules speak to your manager
in the first instance.
WINE OF THE MONTH
Granacha, Bodegas
Maximo, Tierra de
Castilla, Spain
Staff Shop special price
£4.37.
A terrific gently spicy
Grenache red from our El
Coto stable. Made from
unclassified old vines.
So juicy, full of character
and concentrated fruit.
Amazing value for money
for the quality.
Try before you buy: the Cockburn
& Campbell team will be holding
a quick and snappy wine tasting
session on Friday 27th February
in The Bar from 4.30pm to 5.15pm
at which they’ll run people through
the wines available in the Staff
Shop. If you’d like to attend please
contact Suzy Spilling.
IN THE BREWERY
You’ll have read in The Snug magazine all about our
brand new mid cone machine which has arrived in
the brewery. The new equipment groups the cans
differently, attaching the rings to the middle of the
can instead of the top, and also uses alignment
technology to make sure all the cans face the same
way on shelf. Here’s Justin Adams and Roberto
Cunto cutting the ribbon to officially open the new
addition to the small pack department, and as you
can see the machine made its debut packaging our
McEwan’s Export cans.
the left of Russia.
We have taken
the opportunity
to launch four
draught beers in
this new market.
Pouring there
now are Young’s
London Stout,
Wells Bombardier,
Young’s Double
Chocolate Stout
and Young’s
London Lager.
Although English beer is popular in Belarus, there
is only one real main supplier in the market, so
our launch event in a English style pub in Minsk,
created a lot of excitement and saw a number
of drinkers and beer bloggers turn out to try our
new beers. Guy Shreeves and Dave PatmoreHill attended the launch from the brewery to talk
the guests through the new beer range and also
introduce Wells Banana Bread Beer and Young’s
Special London Ale in bottle. All the beers got the
thumbs up!
Every morning at 9.45am the brewers get together
to taste our cask beers and record any comments or
thoughts on each batch. The brewing team would
welcome any member of staff interested in finding
out more about our beers to join them for this ten
minute tasting session, just meet on the packaging
balcony in production at 9.45am and make sure
you’ve got the right PPE on!
SALES NEWS
The figures are in and our festive ale, A Good
Stuffing performed brilliantly over its second
Christmas with sales up 40%* in Enterprise, 15%* in
Punch Taverns and a whopping 67%* in Heineken
UK (HUK) which also reported it had the highest
recorded sales ever for a guest beer, selling more
than 2,400 firkins (*vs last year).
BEER NEWS
It’s not the first time we’ve found a celebrity fan of
our beers, but the latest was James Arthur of X
Factor fame who shared his love for DNA beer with
his two million Twitter followers this month!
Paul Brown the Senior National Account Manager
for Leased & Tenanted PubCos and National
Brewers reports that a new Bombardier deal has
been negotiated with HUK and from 2nd March,
Bombardier English will be one of only nine
Foundation cask ale brands that the HUK salesforce
will be focusing on to continue the brand’s growth. It
also means that Burning Gold has been listed and is
available to all HUK customers in England.
We’ll soon be introducing an assortment of crown
bottle caps for our Bombardier beers to add some
variety so you’ll notice there’ll be a mix and match
of tops in each case carrying different slogans such
as “Welcome to the Regiment”, “Huzzah” and “Take
Aim”.
On the 29th January Charles Wells beers made
their debut in Belarus, a new market for us, just to
Also in March we’ll be back out at five Enterprise
Roadshows from Leeds to Wembley which is a
great opportunity for us to engage with more than
160 Enterprise Regional Managers and 2,000
Enterprise Publicans.
As a reminder, Young’s London Stout is now
available in the network in both 30L and 50L kegs
and order codes are on forecast sheets.
Matt Gregory, National Account Manager reported
that we have secured our Loungers Estrella Damm
draught business for the next two years. This is one
of the UK’s fastest growing managed chains and will
be opening another 40 outlets over the next couple
of years so this is a key account.
Chloe Haworth, one of our new NBEs (New
Business Executives) secured a stocking for Estrella
Damm and Erdinger bottles within Handmade
Burger Company across their
22 outlet estate.
The NBEs (Andrew Mercer,
Toby Leaman, Emma Grayland
and Chloe Haworth) continue to
grow are and are building key
relationships with their Route
To Market (RTM) counterparts
which is resulting in some key
wins- 41% of the quarter has
passed and we have achieved
57% of target on DNA keg and
197% on the Erdinger bottle target.
We’ve also seen DNA and Estrella Damm listed in
EH Booths which has 27 supermarkets across the
north.
PUB NEWS
The doors have closed on The Salisbury Arms
pub on Tenison Road in Cambridge as it begins its
transformation ahead of the big unveiling of our new
Pizza, Pots and Pints concept. With new manager
Samuel Adams behind the bar the Salisbury Arms
will offer people a fantastic family pub serving
freshly cooked artisan pizzas in an authentic wood
fired pizza oven, warming one pot meals and of
course, an excellent range of our beers. We’re also
offering people the opportunity to get a
first look of the brand new Salisbury Arms
when it opens in March and enjoy 50%
off food by signing up to the Salisbury
Family online at
www.salisburyarmscambridge.co.uk.
Share with your family and friends, and
see the development as it progresses on
the Facebook page at
www.facebook.com/salisburyarms.
Well done to Kieran O’Brien and
Matt Kaprockyj and the team at The
Nightingale in Bicester whose locals voted them
the Pub Of The Year in a competition run by local
newspaper The Buckingham Advertiser.
Well done to the team at Oak Taverns who run The
Olde Kings Arms in Hemel Hempstead and won
the category of “Most Improved” in the Laterooms,
Simply the Guest Awards.
LAST ORDERS
Thank you to everyone who entered our competition in The Snug magazine to correctly identify the
beer as Young’s Bitter. Well done to Gary Cox in Engineering whose name was drawn from the hat to
win two cases of Young’s Hummingbird and some branded glasses.
Well done to Jackie Popland in Finance who completed her forth marathon this weekend as she took
part in the Vodafone Malta Marathon.
Good luck to Craig Murray in Finance who is taking part in the Silverstone Half Marathon on Sunday
15th March.
Congratulations to Maria Kumar, Treasury Accountant who passed her ACCA P2 Corporate Reporting
exam.
Well done and thank you to everyone who baked, bought and supported the Valentine’s cake sale in
Hub which raised £86.00 for Sue Ryder Cancer.
A very big round of applause to Ray Grubb in Payroll and his partner
Marie who trekked 58 miles to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in six
days to raise money for Help for Heroes. At a height of 19,341ft
Kilimanjaro is the highest free standing mountain in the world. To
complete the climb, Ray and Marie battled through torrential rain
and storms, hail and snow, freezing temperatures a wind chill factor
of -32C at times and an almost completely vertical 275m climb at
one point. Together they have already raised more than for £6,500
for the charity, and if you’d like to donate for this very worthy cause
you can do so at www.bemycharity.com/raygrubb.